


show me where my armor ends

by justsleepwalkin



Category: Arrow (TV 2012), DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Episode: s01e06 Star City 2046, Established Relationship, Loss of Limbs, M/M, Rated For Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-18
Updated: 2017-06-18
Packaged: 2018-11-15 13:50:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11232315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justsleepwalkin/pseuds/justsleepwalkin
Summary: A memory, covered in dust like the room around him.





	1. Part I

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Sleeping at Last's "Pluto."  
> ([♫](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iflslc-D38))
> 
> You can find How to Preserve a Severed Limb on wikihow. Just sayin'.

The noise of Star City's streets have passed on, rampaging away from the dark scene. He's got a gun and that's all, his comms fried and his wits gone. He tries to keep emotion out of it, but when he sees the stage covered in blood and no sign of Deathstroke or the Green Arrow, Quentin's heart races and gets stuck somewhere in his throat. They were all out combing the streets, and then Deathstroke's army set traps all over the city that blew out technology so they all lost Overwatch in their ears. Quentin could only judge where Oliver must have been by the direction that Deathstroke's army had left from.

He pulls out a flashlight and lights up the trail of blood, following it. It leads out much further than Quentin would have guessed, but eventually it stops with a huddled body wedged between a brick wall and a dumpster. 

“Oliver?” he rasps, moving closer at a slow pace, but the form doesn't move. He crouches down, running light over the body, terrified that Oliver is dead, and the light falls onto where an arm should be and Quentin puts a hand over his mouth to keep from vomiting, hiccuping back a cry. He sets down the flashlight and pushes both his hands in to find Oliver's neck, skimming thumbs over skin until he finds a pulse point. Barely there. “Come on, Oliver, stay with me.” He thinks he might just be imagining the pulse. 

Oliver turns his head into Quentin's hand. Dull eyes open. “I don't know if I can,” he whispers.

“Everything's done, Oliver. I don't know if I can get help out here fast enough.” He looks to the tatters of flesh and leather, where Oliver's arm use to be. “I don't know how to help you.”

“Think it's a miracle I've lasted this long, Quentin, don't you?”

“No, you'll be fine. You'll recover from this.”

Oliver breathes out a laugh. It's all the movement he can manage. “I'm not indestructible.” He shakes his head, voice hitching, “I can't keep doing this, Quentin.”

Quentin crowds closer, hands moving behind Oliver's neck, and he kisses Oliver's lips, gentle, like he could breathe new life into the archer. “Please,” he whispers, pressing their foreheads together. “Don't give up. Don't let him win.”

“I don't know how.”

Quentin lets out a shaky breath and then pulls away. He starts stripping out of top layers, tearing what he needs, and wrapping the limb. _Focus_. Just work, don't think. He grabs for his flashlight again, standing and pushing open the lid of the dumpster and tearing through, pulling out several discarded plastic grocery bags and searching for anything else that might be of use.

“Quentin.”

Quentin ignores him.

“ _Quentin_.”

“No. Quiet. I'm not just going to watch you die in front of me if there's something I can still do. If _you_ can't fight anymore, then _I'll_ have to do it for you.” 

So Oliver lets him work, quiet, not breaking Quentin's determination. By the time more help arrives—following the same reasoning Quentin had—he's got Oliver lying on his side, wound wrapped and sealed as best as he can manage, Quentin's jacket laid over him, and Oliver's legs raised up by laying over Quentin's own. 

“Oh my god,” Lyla whispers, her and John rounding the corner. “Is he...?”

“Still conscious, barely,” Quentin answers. “With the three of us, we might be able to transfer him back.”

“Here.” John hands Quentin a new comm. “Thea and Roy are catching up with Deathstroke's army. They'll let us know if anyone starts doubling back to us. We should be clear, otherwise.”

Quentin fixes the comm into his ear. “They actually see Deathstroke?”

“Not yet,” Lyla says. “Why?”

Quentin scowls and looks away. “That bastard's probably carrying Oliver's arm like a trophy.” 

Lyla grimaces. “More than likely. Alright, let's do this. John, you take that side...”


	2. Part II

No one is supposed to be here, so it's a shock that from the shadows comes a ghost in white. From the shadows comes Sara Lance, and Oliver doesn't know what to do other than push her away. It's been too long, he's too bitter, and any of the people that could keep him hopeful are dead, her father included.

At one point, before Deathstroke, Oliver was the optimist. 

_“She'll come back. She said she would,” Oliver whispers. A small smile plays on his face. “She's saving... she's saving everything. The world, the universe. Time, space. That's something to be proud of.”_

_“I know, I know. And I am... I just wish...”_

_“Yeah.”_

But then they needed help, and it wasn't there. They needed Sara and Ray, and Oliver thought that with their timeship, surely they would know. Surely they would come when they were needed most. 

Oliver's never felt so... _forgotten_ about. And even Quentin's hope was fading fast, replaced by something more visceral. 

_“Maybe she's not even alive anymore.”_

And Oliver wished he could say otherwise, but he couldn't lie.

Seeing Sara now? It jabs something in him, rough and rigid. Her, John, it's all a reminder of everyone that's died. Everyone he couldn't save, lives slipped out of his grip, one after the other. 

There is no city to hold, he wants to say.

“What happened to you? To Laurel? To my dad? Felicity...?”

“They're gone,” he whispers, “all of them.”

He leaves them, ghosts at his back, the darkness of the foundry rekindling, coming alive, whispering, mocking. So long he hasn't been _thinking_ , _remembering_. Thought to be dead and letting it stay that way. He just wants to return to that. 

“I can't be that person,” he hisses to the shadows. 

When Sara returns a second time, the sharpness in her eyes draws him up short. An echo. A memory, covered in dust like the room around him. 

Don't give up. Don't let him win. 

Oliver breathes. He reaches for the bow.

**Author's Note:**

> UGH FINALLY HAVE THIS DECENT ENOUGH.
> 
> Seriously I had most of this written during NaNo2016. I had a lot of PIECES of things written during that, but getting them rounded out enough that I felt like posting them? That's a whole other story :| I think at the time I wanted to do more for this, but hell if I remember what that was. Anyway if the flow of the writing sounds off, that's what a six month break does, I guess.


End file.
